WPX SSB Return Brings Reminder of Ham Radio Contest Cheating Crackdown; HG5A In Spotlight

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted March 24, 2011

As the bands come alive this weekend for the CQ WPX SSB Contest, there's fresh evidence from the results of the 2010 WPX SSB of the ongoing crackdown by contest sponsors on cheating within the ham radio contest community.

Following the lead of the CQ WW DX Contests, WPX organizers instituted a penalty system modeled on international football (soccer) in which participants could be given "Yellow" or "Red" cards for rules violations.

13 hams were given Yellow Cards for rule violations in the 2010 WPX SSB test for "unclaimed assistance," with all of the warnings going to stations in Europe and Russia.

In the 2010 WPX CW, 12 hams were given Yellow cards for the same reason of "unclaimed assistance," as those warnings again were focused mainly on stations in Eastern Europe.

"Extensive checking was done on single-operator entries that appeared to have used DX cluster or other assistance to make QSOs and did not enter the Assisted category," said WPX Contest Director Randy Thompson K5ZD.

The crackdown on stations who use packet/DX cluster/spotting networks but do not enter the Assisted category, has won strong support in ham radio contest circles. It began with the 2009 CQ WW DX Contests and moved into WPX for 2010.

You can see a listing of last year's WPX SSB and WPX CW Yellow cards on the right sidebar.

HG5A Involved In Four Penalty Announcements

Of the four CQ Magazine contests that have published Red and Yellow card penalties since they began in 2009, one call has been involved in every penalty announcement - HG5A.

HG5A is the call of the BKV Radio Club in Hungary, which has been host to a number of contest operations through the years.

In the 2009 CQ WW SSB Contest, HG5A - operated by Gyorgy Kasper HA1CW - was given a "Red Card" for unclaimed assistance and unverifiable contacts.

In the 2009 CQ WW CW Contest, HG5A - operated again by HA1CW - was given a "Red Card" for unclaimed assistance and unverifiable contacts.

In the 2010 CQ WPX SSB Contest, HG5A was not given either a Red or Yellow card - but - HG5A was allowed to withdraw the log submitted by HA1CW.

In the 2010 CQ WPX CW Contest, HG5A avoided a Red or Yellow card when the log submitted by Aty Pantya HA8LLK was withdrawn as an entry.

While the process of withdrawing a log is not spelled out in the CQ WPX Rules, it is part of the rules for CQ WW, as it indicates that organizers have found problems with the entry and are basically giving the competitor one last chance to withdraw the log or face a penalty:

"An entrant is free to withdraw his/her submitted log for any reason prior to receiving an official letter from the CQ WW Contest Committee. The log will then be handled per the entrant’s request," the rules read.

"If after receiving an official letter from the CQ WW Contest Committee, an entrant chooses to withdraw their log, the entrant’s call will be listed at end of the results showing their log as having been withdrawn."

This Year's Contest: WPX SSB Keeps Growing

If 2010 was any indication of what to expect this year, then more logs are likely to be submitted to WPX organizers.

WPX Director Randy Thompson K5ZD noted on his WPX blog that log entries for the SSB leg were up 16% in 2010 to a record level of 4,758.

In terms of records from last year, Jim Sullivan W7EJ set a new overall single ban record from CN2R in Morocco, while Team DR1A put its callsign on the record for most prefixes, with 1,747.

All kinds of information is available on the WPX SSB contest at the WPX web site, including an interactive score database for both WPX SSB and WPX CW.

That database now extends back to 1975.

The 2010 WPX SSB Contest starts at 0000z March 26 and ends at 2400z March 27. Single operator entries can only operate 36 hours maximum, while multi-ops can operate the entire contest.